Besxar Builds Orbital Chip Factories on SpaceX Rockets — SkimNews
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- Besxar launched two 'fabships' on a July Starlink mission to test semiconductor material production in orbit, confirming the samples returned were cleaner than terrestrial equivalents despite a data system malfunction in one unit
- Ashley Pilipiszyn, founder of Besxar and former OpenAI staffer, raised nearly $14 million including a $9 million seed round led by Dauntless Ventures and Overture VC to advance orbital chip fabrication
- SpaceX Falcon 9 boosters, which flew over 100 times this year, are being used as testbeds for Besxar’s technology after Pilipiszyn initially pursued Starship flights and pivoted to booster payloads for de-risking
- Besxar plans incremental development over two years, progressing from heating wafers to depositing multiple materials, with the long-term goal of deploying larger fabs on vehicles like Starship
- The vacuum of space eliminates the need for Earth-based clean rooms, a core rationale for Besxar’s approach as it aims to reduce the infrastructure burden of advanced semiconductor manufacturing
Why it matters: Besxar’s use of frequent, reusable rocket flights creates a scalable path to orbital manufacturing that could lower the cost and complexity of producing advanced chips, a shift that may benefit semiconductor firms and space infrastructure investors while challenging traditional fab economics.
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